Major materials not used or controlled

We listed materials we would not want to use at home and then drew up a shortlist of those we should control most strictly, taking into consideration the quantity we use and social trends.

Vinyl chloride

We do not use vinyl chloride unless we need it for safety or to maintain the functionality of products.

Vinyl chloride is easy to process and is very durable, but when burnt, may produce hazardous substances, particularly dioxins and hydrogen chloride. In addition, it is thought that phthalic acid esters, added to vinyl chloride to facilitate forming and processing, may be endocrine disruptors. We only use vinyl chloride for MUJI products if there is no substitute material to maintain the safety or functionality required of the products.

Formaldehyde

For furniture, we use wood with a JAS/JIS formaldehyde diffusion level of F☆☆☆ or F☆☆☆☆.

We only use wood with a JAS/JIS formaldehyde diffusion level of F☆☆☆ or F☆☆☆☆ for furniture.

Forest resources

We do not use wood from illegal felling as the raw material of wood or paper products.

Illegal felling threatens the lives of the people and the animals in the vicinity, alters the topography and affects global warming. We strive to ensure that the raw materials we use for MUJI wood and paper products are not derived from illegally felled timber. We check the origin of major parts and materials. However, we use recycled paper and laminated wood made of recycled wood, although we are unable to check the origin of the materials, because we consider that the effective use of wood resources through recycling is important.

Food additives

We do not use stevia (a sugar substitute) or sorbic acid (a preservative) which are prohibited abroad.

Food additives are dealt with differently according to country. MUJI products are now sold in fifteen countries. We will stop using food additives that are prohibited overseas in MUJI products incrementally, for the peace of mind of all of our customers. We do not use 24 additives. These include the above, the artificial colorings food red no. 2, food blue no. 1, etc., and antioxidants including BHT.

Use of fluorine

We announced our intention to stop using fluorine for MUJI products, particularly of fluorine resin coating for cooking pans, because prolonged heating of an empty pan coated with fluorine resin may generate toxic gas. However, we decided to continue to use fluorine resin for the following two reasons: the strong demand for fluorine resin coated products (which prevent burning), and the fact that substitutes perform very badly, according to our research. We will devise and implement description standards for products with fluorine resin parts which will be heated, so that they bear a description clearly stating they have fluorine resin. We will continue our research into substitutes for fluorine and endeavor to replace fluorine as soon as possible.